Lily Renée was a Austrian-American artist, author and playwright who at thirteen escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna to come to America. She was a pioneer for women in the comic book industry, primarily working for Fiction House. There she provided distinctive artwork showing the influence of Austrian fine artists like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele on long-running features like Lost World, The Werewolf Hunter and Senorita Rio.

Last year she was written up in Newsweek (how did I miss that?) and she’s the subject of an upcoming book by writer, cartoonist and feminist historian Trina Robbins. Due for release this November is Lily Renne: From Holocaust Survivor To Comic Book Pioneer features illustrations by Anne Timmons and Mo Oh.

Here’s a Lost World page by her from Planet Comics #45.

And one from the story “Was I Too Young For Love?” from Diary Secrets #10.

For the publisher St. John where she worked on everything from Abbott & Costello to Diary Secrets to Kitty. It was her only work in the teen genre and she came up with an art style that was as distinctive as it was attractive. Among all of the teen titles clogging the stands at the time Kitty had an absolutely unique look and the comic seemed to have a lot of potential So I have no idea why St. John only produced one issue of it.

There was only a single Kitty story in Kitty#1, the rest of the book was filled out by paper doll pages, some humorous one pagers and two stories featuring two other teens, Sally…

…and Kenny. I have absolutely no idea who drew Kenny but I sure like their work. Would anybody out there like to hazard a guess?